set fire to the third bar
by themonkeytwin
Summary: It was a strange thing, to know you were living a life that wasn't quite your own. – Canon-divergence AU. What might Clint be like if he never ran away and joined the circus? Never became Hawkeye? And what happens when his path crosses with that of a certain redhead's?


This grew out of a few stray observations on meta on Clint's characterisation; it insisted on growing into a ficlet, which insisted on growing into a story.

Title from the song by Snow Patrol.

* * *

It was a strange thing, to know you were living a life that wasn't quite your own.

Clint Barton was a man who didn't miss much. He didn't miss the nail's head on the construction site; he didn't miss a bullseye on the range; he didn't miss on the bar's old dartboard or pool table – he didn't miss that it was a long time since anyone local would play him for money until he or they were good and drunk, and he didn't miss it when even that stopped.

He didn't miss the way the single ladies in his small country town eyed him, and he needed no one to tell him their mamas and aunts watched him with only a slightly modified version of the same look. He needed no one to tell him that, even with his uncompromising devotion to the adolescent boy and paraplegic widow he'd inherited from the car crash that took his brother, he was considered a catch.

So it was impossible for him to miss that he was different. Wrong. That no one else in their small, normal, molasses–pace country town carried a world of fire and violence around inside them; a world that every night called him in dreams to a beautiful dance from a perfect distance. He needed no one to tell him that there was no place for that world here, where molasses closed in like amber; knew the odd looks he got when he let slip something that struggled frantically and burned holes. But here was a place he owed a debt; a life lived whole, a safe family home, and he was not going to run away from that. So he ground grooves in amber and found his footing, learned to guard his mouth with just enough genial small-town chatter that no one noticed the life he lived took up too much silence and too much space.

He sometimes wondered if Barney had felt the same way, some kind of shared genetic appetite for turmoil and destruction that preyed on them right back. That had taken their pop in helpless drunken fury and indiscriminate fists, pushed their mother to bitter indifference and abandonment, and had become terror hard enough to wield a rifle in his big brother's hands. That had galvanized his brother, at just fifteen, into taking on every responsibility and promise necessary to keep the state from splitting them up from each other or their home when their pop got into the last bar brawl he'd ever start. That not a decade later had chewed him up in a crunch of steel on the interstate, in such a way that he'd miraculously spared the lives of his wife and baby son.

Maybe it had been in them all along; maybe it's what they had been meant to be. Maybe it was the normal, real world that was spitting the Bartons back out, like a transplant gone bad. Maybe one day the fire and violence would come to claim him for its own, too.

But until it did, he made the most of the life he owed to the only person who had never turned on him or abandoned him. He became the man in his brother's family just as his brother had become the man for him. He made their home one of strength, of laughter and pride and understanding instead of brute power and fear. He held the other world at arm's length for their sake, found joy in building things, diverting all that he was into making things grounded and strong and true. He became a man of the town, liked and respected and assumed to be one of their own, with an easy smile, a steady head, and unerring aim. He became a man he wasn't really, but maybe should be.

And if he lived alone with the fire and violence, and if he circled it, and if he courted it with bow-hunting and occasional benders and volunteering with the state emergency services – and if, deep down, he sometimes thought the craving to finally meet it face-to-face would tear him in half – then he never let it make him miss the life he'd committed to live.

* * *

That afternoon the world was cool, and wet, and suffocating. It was the kind of afternoon he hated, dismal and so numb that it ignited an internal roar of protest. The kind that would, most times, see him drinking to a stupor or driving all night just to remember that he was alive. This afternoon, however, had provided something better, in the form of a emergency services volunteer summons.

He parked his truck outside the ring of flashing lights in the middle of nowhere, his spirits rising. When he climbed out with his jacket and gear, he didn't miss the the relief on the face of his crew's supervisor at the sight of him. Somewhere between construction and devastation, in the balance where he didn't miss very much at all, he could walk up to disaster areas that were part-building, mostly-rubble, and know the seams of strength. He didn't miss the subliminal warnings of compromised structural integrity, and when he gave the alarm, no one in their right mind stayed behind. Clint Barton, wrong and strange in ways they would never notice, was as close to a real-life good-luck charm as any of them could lay claim to.

He surveyed the scene as he made his way over to the other guys. "What d'we got?"

"Weird, is what," Doug answered. "And trouble on top."

Doug was a very capable supervisor; he didn't spook easy. Clint liked him. He gave the collapsed compound a second look. "Trouble?"

"Yeah, the redhead-with-governmental-agency-out-the-ass kind."

Well, that could be taken a number of ways. "Hm," Clint offered.

Doug gave him a glum look, and a blueprint of the compound's layout. "Listen, I need you to go inside the perimeter, tell me if you think there's any stable way into that heap."

Clint waited a moment longer, in case any more information was forthcoming on the request, then nodded and ducked through the cordon. As he headed around, he felt the primitive relish rising inside, like a bloodhound straining to be unleashed, every sense honed pinpoint sharp. Chaos roiled before him, calling him to its dance; and with a grin, he released the inner world to match its steps and blaze his path.

When he finally circled back forty minutes later, heavy clouds had turned the afternoon dark gray, and floodlights seared the intermittent rain white. Reaching the cement drive, he stamped the excess mud off his boots, slicked the water in his hair back from his face, and slowed down when it became clear he was returning to an argument.

"Listen, lady, there are still three people unaccounted for! You gotta let us –"

He didn't miss much, and that went double when it came to women; even though the lady in question was standing with her back to Clint, she was still speaking volumes. From the deeply red hair dampened toffee-dark in the rain, to the impeccably stylish and deceptively sturdy boots, to the way her body curved all the way in between, those volumes were, indeed, entitled _Trouble_.

He maintained his distance.

A small gesture of her head, and the suit who was standing beside her spoke up firmly. "It's a question of containment; in this matter, our agency has jurisdiction. Your people are under our standard protocol for such an event. We have experience with this kind of thing."

Doug stared at the guy incredulously. "You're saying this happens for you guys a lot? Is there a hazmat warning I should know about?"

"Of no conventional type."

"What the _f_–"

"If we can get to the laboratory section, we will assess the risk level, if any. Now, can this man you spoke of help us do that or not?"

Doug's back was well and truly up; watching him, Clint allowed himself a smirk. "Yeah, I'm gonna go with probably not, there, son. If I'm risking the lives of my guys, the priority's gonna be to get the _people_ out." He looked up, caught Clint's eyes, and issued an interrogative with his own. Clint returned it with a dubious expression and a shake of the head. Armed with this, Doug continued, "My best information right now has it that any kind of attempt at – at _spelunking_ our way into the structure is prohibitively risky. I'm afraid I can't let you in there. I'll give the order to start excavating, and when we get close enough, maybe then –"

"Unacceptable." Her voice brought every man there to a halt; it was a voice of sex and smoke and sliced like steel. Hanging back as he was, safely out of the line of fire, Clint watched the effect she had, smirk widening.

She continued, unstoppable. "You will give me two hours to get in, no interference with the structure. After that, the site is yours."

"What ... _you?_ By yourself? You can't! That's suicide, I can't let you –"

Clint straightened. "I'll go with her."

Doug marched straight over and pulled him aside. "No! There's no way you can get to that lab. And you have no idea what kind of toxic breach could be down there if you do! This whole thing is insane, but if she wants to be insane, then that's what I'll let her be. I'm not letting her take you with her."

"The lady's going in, Doug. I'm her best chance of coming out again."

Doug put his hand on Clint's shoulder. "Look me in the eye and tell me you can do this."

Clint looked him in the eye. "I won't let either of us die if I can help it."

Eventually Doug broke away first, and swore. "She has two hours. Anything feels wrong, anything, you turn around and get right the hell out. Don't take any chances, and if she gets herself into trouble, don't you dare be any kind of hero. Two hours. Got me?"

Clint grinned, making Doug swear again. Clint just set his watch to two hours and raised his eyebrows until Doug grudgingly led them back to the others.

"This is Clint Barton. If anyone can find you a way in and out in one piece, it's him. Clint, Ms Rushman."

She turned, and he got most of "Ma'am" out of his mouth before their eyes met.

Clint Barton was a man who didn't miss much. He didn't miss that the woman standing in front of him was beautiful. Green eyed, full lipped, ivory skinned, glossy-magazine, one-girl-in-a-million stunning. He didn't miss the grace and strength, the intellect and sensuality, the versatility and reserve in every perfect line of her face. He didn't miss the iron will or the old soul deep in her eyes. He didn't miss the thousand things that face and body could say and do, the ten thousand ways she could bring any man to his knees if she chose. He did not miss that she was _trouble_.

And he didn't miss that every single one of those things was a mask. He needed no one to tell him that standing right here in front of him, staring right back at him, was a world of violence and fire.

He couldn't say how long they stood that way, or why the rain spitting down around them didn't incinerate on the spot. Neither of them moved, until Doug broke in and handed her a hard hat and safety gear.

"Clock's started," he said, jarring them into motion.

It only took a few minutes to strap and buckle on his own well-worn safety gear, in which time he studiously avoided looking in her direction at all. It was not until every piece was in place that he felt equal to meeting her gaze again, to hold it all at arm's length.

"Ma'am?"

She, too, had built her walls back up. It helped, a little. Strangely, so did the fact that those walls couldn't really hide what lay beneath – he thought the howl to tear them down might overwhelm him, otherwise.

"Lead the way, Mr Barton."

He skirted them around the mounds of debris to where he'd spied a partially exposed stairwell, leading down into the ground. She gave him a calculating a look, almost challenging. The hole appeared no different to the warren of death traps all around it, but he knew he could explain his reading of it to her. How the contour of the mounds told him that the falling, sliding structure had tented along a fortunate angle, however precarious. How according to the blueprints, the passageway below ran close enough to that angle that it might not have caved in completely, and would eventually cross paths with the excessively reinforced subterranean laboratory. How even that might not be enough, because from the overview he'd triangulated by climbing the floodlight poles, the point of origin for the destruction appeared to be that very lab.

He held her look, and clicked on his flashlight without a single word.

Her lips quirked the tiniest amount. She reached up and turned on her headlamp, then in one fluid motion crouched down and went straight in.

He shouldn't be grinning. He wiped it off his face and slithered in after her, found her serenely waiting at the bottom of the stairwell for him to once more lead the way.

He did so, with no more need to open his mouth than before. For nearly an hour they picked and dug their way through the fall-ins along the passageway in silence, the merest pause or gesture of the lightbeam enough to communicate intention, working as smoothly together as two hands of one body. The deeper they went, the more seamless it became, the brief necessary touches to boost or steady the other coming automatically, without even looking; a beautiful dance with a perfect rhythm.

It didn't occur to him to find it odd that burrowing into a pitch-black concrete rubble coffin, toward the source of the destruction, was the most free and alive he'd ever felt. Everything had burned away except his focus on the target, the purity of aim that ensured they would not miss. Finally, he scraped through an opening into a clear pocket that felt different, felt ... right. He stopped, and took stock, running his light over the juncture they'd come to, then turned it on her as she rose to her feet behind him.

"Laboratory," he said, voice rusty with the dust, but no less smug for it.

A slow smile flared into being on her face, deep and real and impressed, and he needed no one to tell him that he was seeing a very rare thing. She nodded her acknowledgment, then took the lead, following the curve of the passage to where a heavy sliding door in the wall was stuck half open. He followed her in, then had to throw his hand up to shield his eyes from the sudden blaze of light near the middle of the room.

Once his eyes had adjusted, he could make her out, standing next to the source of the light, examining it as it pulsed. Since she obviously didn't need his help, he turned his attention to the damage pattern within the room. The ceiling was sagging crazily; one section had come down completely. The only reason the room was still a room was because of another section, sloping from the floor to the one part of the ceiling that hadn't collapsed. The hairs on the back of his neck rose as he studied it; it most definitely wasn't going to stay that way. He began a sweep around the room.

Soon he had seen all he needed to. "So the good news is Doug won't have to risk anyone to rescue the three people unaccounted for."

"Dead?" She sounded supremely unsurprised.

"Very."

"The bad news?"

"He's not going to know that if we don't leave in the next few minutes, assuming the passage we cleared remained open. And maybe not even then."

She looked up for the first time. "I need longer."

"Sure. You can have fifteen, maybe twenty minutes. Then this ceiling is going to go, and the entire corridor we came down is going to hold up about as well as a row of dominos."

She locked eyes with him from across the lab, a variation on the calculating look she gave him before. But he knew this time her calculation wasn't about his judgment; the dance between them remained seamless, and she knew he was certain of his verdict.

Abruptly she turned, cutting free from him. "You should go."

In one way, the shock of it was as if she had severed him in half. For the first time since they'd ventured underground, his mind went to molasses and amber, to the faces of his brother and his family, to grooves of duty and things grounded and strong and true. To the world above that was normal and real, everything he owed and everything he'd given.

In another, much deeper way, it made the truth he'd been circling around impossible to miss. He needed no one to tell him he'd been claimed; that he might as well try to live severed in half as live with this woman being buried underground, alone. He strode over to her, closed the distance until she was looking up at him from inches away, the play of light like flames over their faces.

"I – have people that I... I have a family."

For the first time, a flicker of confusion showed in those crystal clear green eyes. "Then _go_."

He didn't move. He only looked down at her, a whole world held out in his eyes, and didn't miss the moment when she accepted it from him. Another smile stole into her face now, and he needed no one to tell him he was seeing something no one else ever had. It was a smile of a lifetime; for the few moments it lasted, he lived in it a life entirely his own.

A life not alone.

She raised her hand in wonder, touched his cheek for a few more moments. Then, with startling speed, she dug into her utility belt and thrust something into his hands. "Put these around the room. Ten second delay. Make sure they'll turn everything in here to dust."

Looking down at the several charges he held, he felt the world inside him flex. For the first time ever he let go, let it take full control. Without question he turned, knowing the exact points that would ensure total destruction. While he worked, fixing them securely and arming the remote detonators, he didn't miss the feverish speed with which she was suddenly working on the device; nor did he miss the creaks and groans of tons of earth and concrete succumbing to gravity bit-by-bit. By the time he returned to her side, he didn't need her to ask.

"Four minutes. Maybe."

She tossed him the remote detonator without sparing him a look. "I hope it's enough."

"For what?"

"To get you back to your family. Stand over there, and don't move. No matter what."

Now he was the confused one, but he obeyed, standing on the small circular platform she indicated a few yards away. She continued her work, a small frown marring her otherwise calm features. Suddenly the device gave a _whum_ of energy and a brilliant pulse of light.

"What are you _doing?_"

"It's a matter transporter. Or it would be, if I can get the power level high enough, and the core program online to tell me what went wrong, and –" she hit it with her palm and said some words that weren't English but were definitely very rude – "make it work properly!"

There was a lot about all of that he would not have accepted from anyone else's mouth. But here with her, with the real world drifting further and further away, he took it in without question. He made to move toward her, but she stopped him with an upflung hand.

"No! Stay right there. And when I tell you to blow those charges, you do it!"

There was also a lot about it she wasn't saying, and he didn't miss any of it. "This thing can – transport – two people?"

For the first time since he'd laid eyes on her, he saw her hesitate. "It'd take more power – more time. Too much."

He stepped off the platform.

She gave him a furious look, but he shook his head. "Then don't waste time arguing. Either we're both standing there, or we don't go."

After one white-hot glare, she took his advice, ignoring him completely while she worked. The _whum_-pulses of the device came faster and harder, competing with the booms and crunches filling the world around them. The tempo of both increased apace, and though he strained every sense and instinct he possessed, he could not tell which would hit critical mass first.

It seemed to happen at the same time. The pulse-rate plateaued, stable and strobing across her smirk of satisfaction. She turned toward him, and with a crash like the footfall of God, the ceiling came down sideways.

"Blow the charges!" For a second she was obscured behind falling debris, nearly inaudible. He pressed the remote det, then tossed it aside, ignoring the ten-second countdown that began in the back of his head. Every other screed of his being had focused on her, on the rubble slewing down between them and how to get her through it to the platform.

The slightest check in the avalanche had her diving forward, and it wouldn't be enough. He lunged in, flinging out his arm to hers; they connected, took hold.

He threw all his weight and strength back toward the platform, pulling her to him.

She was in his arms, falling.

The world smashed down with a boom of fire and violence.

* * *

The world was cool, and wet, and suffocating.

Clint coughed, and felt things shift and topple across him. A couple of seconds after the ringing in his head and pain made him realize he was still alive, he realized he was holding something tight; hunched protectively over it as stray wreckage continued to settle around them. His eyes snapped open, too fast, the floodlight lancing into his aching head. He fought to keep them open anyway, squinting down at the face of the woman in his arms.

It was bloodless and covered in grit and dust. He raised his hand, ignoring the raw shriek of his muscles, and ran a thumb across her cheek, smearing the few raindrops that had fallen on it into a streak of mud. Silently begging her eyes to open, he didn't miss their first flutter, the quiet moan of waking. He didn't miss the way they opened and fixed straight on him, green and alive and crystal clear. After a moment, a tiny smile shared itself between them, an ember gleam marking all that had just passed.

She let her eyes drift shut, a slight nod of acknowledgment. He allowed his head to droop forward, rest next to hers on the rubble as he took stock of life and limb. He found, after a few minutes of just breathing in time with her, that he probably could move. It took a few tries, but they eventually managed to crawl free, and then up the nearest slope.

Once there, he half-sat, half-collapsed, and didn't so much give her a hand up as let her pull herself up by his arm. Then he slumped back against the peak, blinking up at the white streaks of rain against a black sky, ignoring the way they made the grime itch on his face. Next to him, she was on the radio, giving their position atop the epicenter of the wreckage. That done, she lay back too, shoulder bumping against his.

They stayed there for what seemed like hours, unmoving in the silence and space that surrounded them as the rain continued to fall. Clint waited for it to resolve into one of his dreams, to wake and discover he was alone in his room, but it didn't happen. He'd never felt more awake.

It didn't really take Doug very long to find them, and Clint kept waiting. Waiting for the moment when the real here, the normal here, meant that he had to push everything to arms' length once more. Waited through Doug's anxious, relieved, baffled questions. Waited with Doug hovering over him, sitting at the back of the ambulance for the all-clear from the EMT, the signal that this flare of fire and violence was spent.

Waited as he watched her shrug off medical attention, conferring instead with her suited assistant, in what was undoubtedly a far more thorough debrief than what he'd given Doug. Waited, bracing for the growing distance between their bodies to snap their worlds apart, isolated pockets stranded in normalcy. Wrong, and alone.

Waiting, watching, he didn't miss the very second she was finished here.

Didn't miss the way she turned around, eyes jolting to his.

In that moment, the waiting ended. He knew: there was nothing separating them. Not the yards of mud or rain between them, not the bustle of people and their various demands, not amber or molasses, not duty or love or family, and not time, time ticking down about to part them, perhaps forever. He had claimed, and been claimed; nothing called or circled or taunted any longer. A lifetime of fire and violence, of _her_, simmered inside him, a world united and complete.

It rose into a quiet smile, mingling with hers. They made no move toward each other. Nothing needed to be said, or done. It simply was.

After a minute, her assistant drove up, and with one last look back, she was gone. He watched until the taillights disappeared into the dark, carrying him away with her, leaving her behind with him.

Clint stood, ignoring the minor bruises and strains. He called home to let them know when he was likely to be back, then went to see what Doug needed from him for the rest of his shift. He didn't miss the worry and pride in his nephew's voice, and made sure to allay his fears, didn't miss the warmth in his sister-in-law for doing so. He didn't miss the smiles and relief of the crew, didn't need to be told how this latest event reinforced their superstition of his lucky status. He didn't miss the way the world inside cleaved smoothly through the drag of reality around him, without catch or hitch, the way nothing had changed and yet everything was different.

And he couldn't miss her. Every step, every moment, every action, she was there, the shape of violence and fire within him. He would never again hold it away.

It was a strange thing, to know that you were living a life not quite your own, alone with someone who wasn't there. But he didn't miss it.


End file.
